There is now a deadline for the Winter Olympic efforts: The opening ceremony in February 2034.
Officials at City Hall, the County Courthouse and in the Park City tourism industry have spent years assisting during the bidding for a second Games in the state. And the awarding of the 2034 Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City on Wednesday essentially launches the organizing phase.
Park City, Summit County and the Park City Chamber/Bureau, in an early step in the Games planning, intend to tap an Olympic liaison. The liaison’s chief duty apparently will be to draft a plan for the next decade of preparing for the Olympics.
A request for proposals for an Olympic liaison is being finalized and is projected to be released shortly. A timeline for a selection is not clear, but it seems likely one could be made by the middle of the fall. A timeline for the work of an Olympic liaison is also not known. The projected cost of a liaison is another unknown. Some of the information may be addressed in the request for proposals itself.
The work is slated to include gathering input from the public via online surveys. There will also be focus groups. A prepared statement describing the liaison work indicates the focus groups will involve former leaders, officials from governments, athletes, the lodging industry and the Games venues identified on the concept map.
“The development of a 10-year action plan will ensure that our communities, stakeholders and residents are best positioned to welcome the world to Park City,” Mayor Nann Worel said in a prepared statement. “Garnering input from local residents, stakeholders and businesses will help inform our vision and action plan for the 2034 Games.”
The details of a 10-year plan would be of broad interest in the community, as Parkites, the tourism industry and the wider business community learn what sort of schedule the area could follow as the plans are crafted for the Games.
It is not clear what sort of issues a liaison will address. City Hall and the County Courthouse will eventually need to work on plans for transportation and security, but it is not known how deeply a liaison will delve into topics like those. The Chamber/Bureau, meanwhile, will likely be involved in the plans for Games celebrations. Much of the broad work will also include an Olympic organizing committee and the three Park City-area competition venues — Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park — but the role of a liaison in that context has not been clarified.
The public input that is gathered will be notable since it will be the first round of opinions after the awarding of the Games and the input will be gathered at the outset of the organizing phase. City Hall and the County Courthouse in 2022 hired the Mountain Mediation Center to conduct community conversations about the Olympics. The input at that time was wide ranging, but more than a year has passed since those opinions were compiled.